What does this mean for coaches?

Well, for all business owners, we know that one (or three?) main factors to success is “Location, location, location” – and with foot traffic of 300 million users, Facebook is the place for a life or business coach to be. Go where the people go! Where else are you going to find such a diverse culture of people? Even if you connect to a very small percentage of those users, you still have a huge potential of doing business. However, with so many users, perhaps you may feel the need to ‘shout!’ to be heard, but this is not true. If you start small, and are genuinely are interested in people – listen, interact, share – then your network will expand naturally. As Chris Brogan stated, “Don’t make your efforts on places like Twitter and Facebook solely about driving people to your home base, but instead, be helpful, participatory, and a good citizen of the social space you’re occupying. When you have some really interesting or helpful information, consider pointing people to your post for more information.”

When you first join Facebook, become friends with people you admire – check out your bookshelf or your RSS feeds for who that could be. People that follow those individuals might be like minded to you, and thus potential ‘friends’. As you grow your network, remember to interact with them as you would in ‘real life’ – such as a networking function. Ask questions, read their profile, get to know them. I’ve noticed that if I keep-up with my network a little everyday vs. a lot once a month, I’m much more likely to gain more out of it – both personally and professionally.

By the way, we’re having a Facebook Success Forum next Friday, September 25th. If you want to learn more about how successful coaches use Facebook, sign-up for the free 1 hour class.